Game 36 Recap: Naughty & Nice
Ballers Take Rubber Match Against Freebirds 11-10 on Nick Leehey Walkoff Homer
By Joe Horton
One intra-inning segment at Raimondi Park on Sunday for Christmas in June was a “naughty or nice” list: the Freebirds’ mascot Willy the wild chicken (naughty), Tremayne Cobb (nice). You get it. But the question of whether someone can change and make amends for ill deeds is a classic Christmas question: can you switch lists? Can you make things right before time’s up and the presents or coal are delivered? That’s the question for this Ballers team (16-20) as they beat the Freebirds 11-10 and earned a crucial home series victory.
Starter CJ Blowers gave up first inning home runs to Jackson Mayo and Josh Phillips, putting the home squad in a familiar early 3-0 hole. However, after Devon Dixon’s single scored an unearned run in the second, Blowers sat down the next 13 Freebirds stretching into the sixth inning. In this tumultuous first half of the season for the Ballers, Blowers has shown time and again his ability to work through early trouble, battle when he has his best stuff and when he doesn’t, and give the B’s quality innings that keep games close. It was his third straight quality start, and Oakland has won his past four starts.
Dispatches caught up with Blowers after the game about what was working on Sunday.
“I had the curveball working amazing today. Curveball was able to come back backdoor for right handers and then to the lefties front door. Obviously, it's working out great.” He said his fastball velocity got better as the game went on. “It's a really good sign for me and my arm and my health and all the work that I'm putting in. So I'm just really excited for where I'm going to end up in the next week or so once everything is clicking altogether.”
Does he feel any added pressure now that he’s strung together many quality (and ultimately victorious) starts for the team? “Anytime you're having a long stretch or a good stretch of success or competitive outings, you're going to feel some weight and add a little bit of pressure, but for me, I feel the responsibility more of turning the tide for the team and showing the guys, hey, you can have a really shitty week and turn it around in one good start. Or you could have a couple of bad starts and turn a new leaf and make yourself a brand new pitcher the next week.”
“I apply pressure to myself because I believe I am a diamond and I can rise to the occasion,” Blowers said. “I just want to give my guys a chance to win a baseball game anytime that I'm on the mound and that's the only thing I'm really concerned about.”
The B’s first hit of the game was Jeter Ybarra’s homer in the fourth. Gareth Kwok may have summoned this one into existence on the call, “It’s been a couple of days, though, since Jeter left the building,” immediately before Ybarra deposited one into left, and then the perfect, “It’s a sweet sixteenth for the Pioneer League’s home run leader.”
In the fifth, it was the long-short-long approach that tied the game. Cam Bufford hit the left field foul pole for his sixth homer of the year, causing Tyler Petersen to exclaim, “I think that’s the first time I’ve seen a ball hit off the foul pole at Raimondi!” and he’s seen everything and would know. After TJ McKenzie laid down a bunt single that surprised third baseman Josh Duarte playing back, Tre Cobb went long again to the tune of 414 feet. Halfway through, it was a tie 4-4 game.
Then came the characteristic Middle Inning Madness that has followed the B’s at home and on the road.
Paul Winland, who’s made an immediate impact since his signing, singled Ybarra home in the sixth. Jaden Collura padded the lead with a two-run shot, plus a wild pitch add-on from Jake Allgeyer (and this great video), made it 8-4 in the seventh.
Then, of course, on cue came the counterpunch: in the eighth, a drop in the B’s outfield put one on and led to an immediate Christian Castaneda 2-run homer.
Three walks between Langston Burkett and Matthew Maloney loaded the bases for Jordan Donahue’s grand slam. A four-run lead became a two-run deficit in ways eerily familiar to the home fans.
If much of Christmas is the anticipation, or maybe even the ghosts of the past foretelling the future, this game, at least, didn’t make fans wait for their present until the last out as had the squeaker the day before. Valek Cisneros put up a clean top of the ninth which would soon earn him the victory. Said Cisneros, simply, of his approach: “attack the zone early.” And, with reverence fitting the reason for the (summer) season, added, “I thank God that I have the opportunity to come in and help do what I can to get the Ballers a win.”
But what about that win? In the bottom of the ninth, the Ballers, with no one out, put Ybarra and Winland aboard before Nick Leehey hit one out for the team’s 79th of the year and more importantly, a series win in which the team managed two scintillating comebacks.
A changed Scrooge famously promises, "I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future." May it be said of the B’s that they knew how to keep the lessons of the first half, if any team alive possesses the power, and that this present marks a turn to a future transformed, merry, and bright.
Photos from Caleb Elkind Photography, Darrell Lavin Photography, and Dawn Pieper. Animations from Chris Drue.
Joe Horton is the editor of Dispatches from Raimondi.
